The Tightening of Screws
by Shatteredsand
Summary: "I can't imagine feeling that way about anyone. Maybe I got a screw missing." "Maybe it just needs tightening."
1. Disconnected

**AN: So I got mindfucked, spent the next several hours chain-smoking in the dark while listening to horribly depressing music, and wrote this.**

**Summary: "I can't imagine feeling that way about anyone. Maybe I got a screw missing." "Maybe it just needs tightening."**

**Warnings: Language, some lemony content**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".**

**Chapter One  
****Disconnected**

**"Too out of touch, out of touch, to touch you  
****So disconnected  
****Going through the motions again  
****So disconnected  
****Everything goes over your head"  
****~~Trapt**

Michelle's hands rove over his body, skin seeking skin. His hands do the same, lazy and smooth, as he traipses across her soft curves. She familiar and warm beneath him.

And he feels nothing.

She moans his name in a frantic mantra as he moves within her. She clings to him, nails digging into his back, desperate to pull him closer. Tells him she loves him when it's done. Cuddles against his side as he lies motionless beside her.

And he feels nothing.

He wraps and arm around her, a gesture of closeness he's obliged to perform. Runs a hand through her fiery hair, holds her beside her. Their chests heave with the labors of their actions.

And Tony, with his beautiful girlfriend lying spent and satisifed in his bed, feels _nothing_.

* * *

Michelle saunters in, a sexy walk meant to catch his eyes and stir his desire. Tony's seen it before and the reaction it inspires in everyone around him. But his response isn't what it should be.

Sure, he wants her. In a vague, sexual way. He's fucked her before and he'll fuck her again, and it'll be good. But he doesn't want her the way Stan wants her. Tony doesn't love her. Feels nothing for her at all.

She settles into his lap, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him. Hot and heavy and passionate. Tony does what is expected, what he's supposed to, and kisses back. His hands moves smoothly over her body, traces over all the familiar paths he'd long ago made and memorized.

He feels like a ghost as she tangles her fingers in his hair; her touch fades through him. Intangible.

The eyes of everyone around dart to them and away. The school's hottest couple. Untouchable. The thing all want to be. What a fucking joke. It's all a house of cards, waiting for the slightest breeze to blow it down and reveal that for all the power he wields, Tony is _empty _inside. Hollow.

He pulls away from Michelle's greedy lips, under the pretense of breathing. She notices nothing; she never does. Thinks he wants her the way he was always supposed to, maybe even that he loves her though he's never said the words. He smirks like the king of the castle because, well, isn't he? A castle of cards is still a castle and even with this nothingness inside, he is still the king of all he sees. The universe bends itself to his will and everything falls into place.

He wonders what it would be like to drop the pretense, to just let it all fall away and act like the numb creature he is. But the very idea frightens him. To lose control, to lie beneath the current of lies and manipulation instead of its master. To be vulnerable that way, it's terrifying.

So he won't do it. _Can't _do it. The fear is all he has left. The control the only thing still _his_. Everything else belongs to the man he pretends to be, the boy who would be king, trembling in his own shadow.


	2. I Am an Illusion

**AN: Just occured to me that I should be working on "Dance Until Dawn" right now. But this fits my mood better... Tell me, should I leave it as a two shot or continue? Maybe four or five chapters?**

**Warnings: Language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins"**

**Chapter Two  
****I Am an Illusion**

**"I'm not real anymore  
****I am an illusion  
****I am the damage  
****I am the relief"  
****~~Rob Thomas**

The girl beneath her is hot. Sexy as hell and one of the best fucks Tea's had the pleasure of having in her bed. But it's morning now and the rush, the need, is gone. And in their place is nothing. The terrible nothingness Tea's become so familiar with.

She crawls out of bed, begins to gather her clothes as the girl...Sherry? Candy? _Brandi _begins to stir. She doesn't actually wake up enough to look around until Tea's already full dressed and taking a slow drag from her cigarette. Brandi goes through the typical morning after rituals, and she watches her with a raised eyebrow and silence.

The girl keeps shooting her these little looks that Tea neither understands nor wants to understand. A one night stand of the mind blowing proportions last night was warrants this sort of awkward morning afters. When Tea is too tired and satisfied to demand the other leave immediately. When the girl she's with can't find the energy or the will to go on her own. Tea's used to it. It doesn't mean anything.

She's felt nothing for this girl, nor this girl for her. Random hook-ups with hot chicks and great sex, they roll off Tea like nothing. Because they _mean _nothing. She smuggles the hungover girl out of her room with a fake smile and a bullshit excuse about studying late. Her family buys it. They always do. Tea's been wearing the same fake smile for so long, even she doesn't remember what the real one looks like anymore.

A pretty little lie hiding all the emptiness inside.

* * *

Tea scopes the club thoroughly for girls hot enough to take home. She weeds through the heteros slowly. Don't get her wrong, straight girls can really rock the sack sometimes, but she doesn't want to have to try and explain to her family why the girl naked in her bed is hysterical, freaking out about being gay. Tea doesn't need that kind of drama in her life.

She gets enough just trying to pretend to be normal in her parents' eyes. Hiding the gayness, the manipulations, the lies, the drugs, the drinking, the...well, honestly, _everything_. God forbid if her family ever figured who the hell she really is.

The picture perfect daughter, cracked and broken just under the surface.

Shit. She needs to stop thinking like this. Shake it off. Be the fucking Tea Marvelli she decided long ago she would be. Un-fucking-touchable by anyone or anything.

The smile is painted on again, all sexy arrogance and seductive teasing, as she moves through the crowd. She moves slow and sensuous, the predator hunting for her prey. Ah, there. Beautiful, a little drunk but not wasted, and sending out gaydar vibes like nobody's business.

Perfect. A warm body pressed against her, driving away thought, is exactly what she needs right now.

Tea sidles up behind her, begins the dance she'd long ago perfected. Matches her pace, hands on her hips. She looks behind her, curious to see who she's dancing with, and smiles flirtatiously at the sight that greets her. She turns to face Tea, leans in to whisper her name, "I'm Gwen."

Tea smirks and leans in to kiss her. It's demanding on both sides, and Tea knows instantly that this girl isn't even going to make it all the way to one house or another. She has the taste of frantic bathroom sex on her tongue.

And sure enough, the girl is pulling tea away from the dance floor, not towards the door but to the bathrooms. Tea grins because, god, she's _good _at this. This, the fleeting touches and the harsh kisses, it makes her feel. Something. Anything. Whatever she can get her hands on, emotion in any form. To make her real for just a second. Just one fucking _second_.

Then, it done. Hands retreat, lips pull away. Ecstasy fades into the familiar numb. The hollow crash after the high. She's still trembling from the rush, from existing long enough to make Gwen cry out, to stifle her own.

And then, she's gone. Walking away because she feels nothing again. And it hurts a little more right after, the nothing after the everything. It's a masochistic kind of feeling, but it's a _feeling_. Gwen is looking at her like she might want a round two, but the aching emptiness inside is crying out and Tea can't even contemplate giving in and feeling again, just to have it snatched away again by her own fucked up mind or heart or whatever is that's broken in her. So she just goes.

Goes to dance, to get lost. To forget that her life is a lie void of everything and anything real. She dances through the crowd, untouched, untouchable. A ghost, an illusion. Beautiful girl, always in control. The world at her feet and no idea what to do with it.


End file.
